Ricardo Paz in a 2020 photo. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
Red Bank’s bicycling landscaper, who gained renown for his long commutes to work pulling an American-flag bedecked equipment trailer, was arrested on Bridge Avenue by federal immigration agents last week.
Ricardo Paz at a Mexican Independence Day celebration near the Red Bank train station in October. (Photo by Brian Donohue)
Paz said he spent one day in what he called the facility’s “hospital” for asthma and hernia symptoms before being returned to the general population. He is concerned about his 17-year-old son, of whom he has legal custody, but is now living alone in the family’s Red Bank apartment.
“I have to work so I can support him and pay the rent,” he said. “I can’t speak to anyone here. I am so sad.”
ICE officials have not replied to multiple requests for comment on what appears to have been several raids in Red Bank last Tuesday nor Paz’s arrest specifically.
In previous interviews, Paz said he entered the US in 2006, arriving “without inspection” according to his lawyer. That attorney, Anne Sedki, said Paz, has been representing Paz in a years-long legal effort to gain permanent residency under asylum provisions in US immigration law. Her efforts are now focused on getting him out of detention.
“I’ve been working with Ricardo for many, many years, and he already has a case in immigration court,” Sedki said. “So the fact that they, you know, wasted resources to pick someone like him up just to expedite his removal is beyond me.”
While his asylum case is pending, she said, Paz was issued legal authorization to live and work in the US until his case is adjudicated. She said it’s unclear if agents targeted him specifically for arrest or he was caught in a larger dragnet.
“We’re trying to get in touch with ICE but they’re kind of refusing to talk to me,” Sedki said. “We don’t have the paperwork.”
Paz was one of several people arrested when masked ICE agents conducted operations in at least two Red Bank locations last Tuesday. (See story below.) It remains unclear how many people were detained.
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Paz said he and another man were arrested near the Wawa at the corner of Bridge Avenue and West Front Street. He said he presented agents with documents showing he has legal authorization to be in the country.
“They didn’t accept that,” he said in Spanish. “They said ‘that’s not valid. ‘”
Paz has worked in recent years as a maintenance worker at the Church of St. Leo the Great in Lincroft.
He was also a well-known figure for anyone who has spent time in Red Bank, where he has commuted to landscaping jobs across several towns by pulling his equipment on a trailer behind his bicycle.
The late Red Bank restaurateur Danny Murphy gave Paz a shout-out on Facebook in August, 2019, as proof that “the American dream is available to everyone if you’re willing to work for it.”
A 2020 News 12 New Jersey TV feature by the current editor of now redbankgreen garnered hundreds of comments from people across the state calling him the epitome of hard work and the embodiment of the American Dream.
And when his bike broke down amid pandemic supply chain shortages, he became the beneficiary of a GoFundeMe campaign started by a stranger that garnered him a new set of wheels.
At the time, Cathy Aldridge, secretary to the St. Leo’s school principal, called Paz “the hardest-working guy” and added, “He’s making America great.”
Ricardo Paz (in yellow scarf) stands in the background near his bicycle trailer decorated with Christmas lights and a Nativity scene during the praying of the Rosary at the Virgin of Guadalupe procession in Johnny Jazz Park last month. (Photo by Brian Donohue)
Amid the Trump administration’s controversial nationwide immigration dragnet, however, it could be a 15-year-old arrest by Red Bank Police that has come back to haunt him.
NJ court records show Paz was arrested by Red Bank Police in January 2011 on charges of ‘simple assault-purposefully/knowingly causing bodily injury” in what he and his attorney say was a domestic dispute with a family member.
State municipal court records list the status of the charge as “disposed,” with no plea of either guilty or not guilty entered. Records indicate Paz was ordered to have no contact with the victim in the case and paid ten dollars in court fees.
“That could be the reason why he was in the system, why they were looking for him,” said the attorney Sedki. She stressed, however, that until ICE provides paperwork on the case there is no way of knowing if he was targeted for the 2011 arrest or just “in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Since his arrest, Paz’s bicycle trailer has sat unmoved on the front lawn of his home, still loaded with the Nativity creche from the St. Anthony’s parish Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe procession last month, in which he pedaled it through the streets to the church.
Also still parked in the driveway since his arrest is the white pickup truck Paz bought a few years ago to haul his gear.
It bears custom stencilling reading “Ricardo Paz Landscape & Lawn Care” along with a bald eagle, an American Flag and the his chosen slogan: “A long way to freedom.”
At the meeting of the Red Bank Mayor and Borough Council Thursday, multiple members of the governing body denounced the recent ICE raids in town without mentioning any detainee by name.
“This is not normal,” said Councilmember Kristina Bonatakis, who referred to the arrests by masked agents as “kidnappings” and “disappearances.”
“This is not okay,” she added. “Some of those folks, all of those folks, taken were important to our community. Some of them, specifically, are people whose stories and character and community commitment have been a balm to our community in years and decades past. And that hurts a lot.”
One seat at the dais last Thursday was empty: that of Deputy Mayor Kate Triggiano, who was absent specifically because of the same issue.
Triggiano was in Trenton testifying on behalf of a trio of bills immigrant advocates are pushing to protect immigrants in New Jersey from federal law enforcement actions. The bills were expected to go before the full legislature Monday.
In denouncing the legislation, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson cited the case of another prominent Red Bank resident: Raul Luna Perez, accused of driving drunk in a crash that killed a mother and daughter in Lakewood last year. Read previous coverage here.
The Trump administration has used the story before to target New Jersey’s practice of restricting when local law enforcement can aid federal immigration agents.
“The New Jersey legislature should focus on protecting law-abiding citizens, not the criminal aliens who kill them,” Jackson said in a statement, according to the New Jersey Monitor.
redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331.
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